The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1887-04-20
The Youngest Brother.

Up to the date when our story prop
erly begins Thomas Erskine Browne
had not been successful in his profess
sion. Why it is not easy to say. He
was well-educated, industrious, pains
taking, rather scholarly, but compan-
ionable, and not at all pretentious. No
one could say anything against his
character He was thirty years old.
The fact remains after seven or eight
years practice he was just about where
he began. He had little income out
side of his business and so was never
in very desperate straits. He regarded
this as very fortunate. Quite possibly
this circumstance was largely response
BILE for his ill-success. He attributed
it to different cause. He was very
youthful in his appearance; few would
have taken him to be more than twenty
four.
Those who have important business
(and a man with five-dollar dog case
thinks it importantly want what they
call an " old head " to do it. Baltimore,
just across the street, was an " old
head" though his age differed but
little from Brownies. Shock-headed
he was, too, with great black beard
and the voice of a fog-horn. He knew
little law and no grammar, but his pre-
ternatural energy and his bulldog
tenacity generally carried the jury.
Plaguey smart lawyer" they said of
Browne, but, to make things even, they
gave their verdicts to Baltimore.
One afternoon in the fall of 1SS- Mr..
Browne stepped aboard the train at
Chester to return home. He was in I'M
usual spirits. He walked through two
coaches, finding every seat filled. AT
about the middle of the third car, COM
ing from the rear, he noticed seat in
which a young lady sat alone. He
paused by the seat an instant and was
! about to pass on, when she looked up
| from her book, opened her eyes very
wide, smiled brightly and made room
for him by her side. twas Miss Title
Evans, who had spent the previous
winter with friends in Brightley. Mr..
Browne was in great request in the
society of the little village, and the two
were very well acquainted indeed. 1t
was only because he had not seen her
recognize her.
He was not in love with her, so he
thought. Until he had achieved a
much greater professional success he
had no intention of marrying. Realiz-
ing that there is a dangerous current
into which one may drift, after which
he is helpless, he had, signing little
at his own foresight, rather avoided
her. What she would have said OF
done he had no idea. If she had
found him anything more than pleas
ant acquaintance, no one in Brightley
suspected it. But what is that curious
state of the feminine heart, the product
of our civilization, that makes 1t sc
purely neutral and receptive? 1t dis
eliminates, recognizes, but does moi
seek 1t is not in the appearances only
but in fact. 1t is an artificial condition
1t is the "promise and potency" OF
love, but is not love. 1t is perhaps
best described as a capacity, but it il
more. 1t is perhaps like negative
electricity, which is just as positive ant
powerful as its opposite, but, until thu
two are brought together, makes M
sign of its presence. So, without pry
ing into the processes of her heart
which had probably not been revealed
to her own consciousness, it may be as
sumed that she would not have beer
unwilling to listen to such a tale o
love as this young man might hav'
poured into her ear, nor slow to re
spond to it. Nor would she have fel
that his failure to realize fortune in
few years of law practice was a grea
objection. She did not ignore the dis
tinctions of wealth, education and so
cial standing, but she kept about he
: girish ideals to which, if neces
sary, she would make willing sacrilic
of much worldly expediency. She wa
not wealthy heiress, but she had
? little property in her own right. 1t
rare, therefore, that the conditions of
, | fortunate marriaoe are present TO sue